The present invention relates to the field of food delivery and service devices. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method and apparatus for continuously serving and displaying food.
The concept of displaying food along a circular path of travel before a group of patrons has enjoyed success in Japanese restaurants which serve sushi. In the traditional method of serving sushi the patrons sit in front of the sushi chef and order sushi. A single sushi order is quite small and a single meal generally comprises a number of individual orders which requires a number of interactions between the patron and the sushi chef. The large number of transactions between the sushi chef and each patron limits the number of patrons a sushi chef can serve. Furthermore, making sushi is a relatively involved process. Thus, in the traditional method of serving sushi the patron can wait quite a long time before being served.
With the introduction of automatic food display and service systems a sushi chef can serve a greater number of patrons while providing fresh sushi to the patron as soon as the patron is seated. One such food display system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,450,032 to Imanaka. Imanaka discloses a continuous chain of small food carriers having the shape of boats arranged in a watercourse. The bow of each boat is physically attached to the stern of an adjacent boat via a chain or other interconnecting member. Food orders are placed on the boats which are circulated around the watercourse via a water current. Patrons seated around the watercourse remove the food orders from the boats as they pass by. A wide variety of sushi is placed on the boats for presentation to the patrons. The chef monitors and replenishes empty boats with the appropriate variety of sushi. In this manner the sushi chef can serve a greater number of patrons while continually presenting a wide variety of sushi to the patrons.
As can be appreciated, the device of Imanaka suffers from the disadvantage that the boats are connected together. Thus, removal of a single boat for repair or any other reason requires that the boat be severed from the continuous chain. Such a removal requires disabling the entire system. Disabling the system is obviously troublesome since the sushi cannot be served to the patrons during this time.
A further problem with Imanaka occurs when the watercourse must be cleaned. When preparing and serving sushi very sterile conditions are required due to the nature of the food. The food delivery system of Imanaka requires that each boat be disconnected from the line or, alternatively, all boats be removed at once to clean the watercourse. Either procedure can be quite time consuming.